And man's true measure is the height
The highest rise to-for in each
Is born the germ of mental might,

To bring all knowledge in his reach.

The noblest words can never tell
Our spirit what the heavenly strains
Of music, in their loftiest swell,
Unto the raptured soul explains.

For language but expresses thought;
Whilst unto harmony is given,
To echo sacred echoes caught

And syllable the psalms of Heaven.

And greatest poem! grandest voice
Of music! never yet were blent
Perfect in one- -to bid rejoice,

Exalted souls, with deep content

Of highest, most exalted art,

Which wedded man's immortal verse

With the immortal thrilling heart
Of song, which fills the universe,

With beauty in all varied guise,

And sings the seasons of the years, And all the hymnings of the skies, And all the music of the spheres !

Yet ne'er is lost one noble word,

Nor ever dies one noble thought; For ever in heaven they are heard,

Although they pass from earth as naught.

And so perchance the heavenly sound
Of harmony, that thrills all earth,
Is but a noble thought re-found,
Re-baptized with its higher birth,

To echo down through Mammon's din,
And silvery pierce Earth's deafened ears;
To wake the higher soul within,

With all the music of the spheres.

Some glow of life, of more than earth, Thrills through us with a sudden gleam, . Like lightning memory of past birth, Baptized in some far heavenly stream.

An instant only-whilst the soul
Grows larger than its mortal frame,
And sees divinely, with the whole
Of God's vast universe, its claim

To loftier life, in larger spheres,
Throughout a mightier range of time,
Whose gladdening days fill golden years,
Through ages growing more sublime;

Where every effort tends to good,
Where every pathway reverent trod,
'Midst men and angels brotherhood,
Leads upward to the throne of God!

And all the ills of lower life,

Like flies in amber, leave no taint
On memory and past pain and strife,
Like discords-sounding far and faint.

By distance softened, mellowing glow,
Half musical, less harsh than sad,
And in eternity's soft glow

Of light the soul lives calmly glad.

NOON.

THE secret of the Poet's soul,
The essence of its gift, is this,
Strong sympathy-with nature's whole
Creation-and with all that is!

Who says great Pan is dead? when all
The myriad chants which nature sings,
From whispering leaves to wild birds' call
Some echo of his worship brings?

The gods of old have never died!

They lived since ever time began,

By many a new name deified,

Through changing creeds, by changing man.

Amidst the vine-leaves overhead,
I hear great Dionysus sing-
As erst he sang, ere art was fled,

And life was in its young world spring.

And love laughs whispering in the breeze,
Lo! Aphrodite yet is fair!

And sudden 'midst the swaying trees

I see her golden, gleaming hair!

The glowing crocus', round her feet,

Of warm, soft whiteness, seem to rise, As though they emulous strove to meet, And golden clasp their pearly prize!

She passes in her goddess grace,

Like living light, across the flowers! And like a gleam of heaven, her face Smiles love between the garden bowers!

Unutterable sweetness fills

The summer's soft voluptuous breath, And all my inmost being thrills

With life which seems too great for death.

Sweet orange-blossoms steep the air,

In languorous softness-and their flowers Like scarlets shine out whitely fair Amidst their glossy dark-leaved bowers.

Is Nature dumb, or are we deaf?
Do her gods answer when we call?
Speaks she to us in whispering leaf,
Or murmurs of the waterfall?

In subtlety of semitone,

Or set in sweet, sad minor key,

She whispers to her own

The secrets of her harmony!

Have all the iron-footed years

Of science crushed that higher sense Which heard the music of the spheres,

And doubted neither where now whence

The soul descended-of our birth?
But, seeing endless beauty given
To every common thing of earth,
Believed it but the gate to Heaven.

The theme of love is never old,
The mystery of its deathless might
Still gives each life its age of gold,
Lit up awhile with heavenly light.

With every generation love

Is virgin born, and springs anew For ever, fed from founts above,

And freshened with celestial dew.

"Common as light is love," and God
Makes all men equal in its bliss,
For all their world seems angel trod
To them, fast raptured with its kiss.

The light of love was in her eyes,

Her beauty thrilled my inmost soul With rapture deeper than the skies, Watching the midnight planets roll.

One passionless star, pulsed bright above,
One purple dimness wrapt the earth,
When first we told over mutual love,
And rapturous traced it from its birth.

All nature sympathetic seemed,

The wild winds whispered gentler by; With softer, whiter radiance gleamed

The stars, which lit the darkening sky.